not-at-all-trivial trivia 2013

I gave up after my near misses. If I'd thought about it, I'm sure I would have gotten Winfield and Vlad eventually. McGriff, probably not. The others, no. Good question.

A friend gave me this the other night: who was the last Cy Young winner to win 20 and hit .300? (Prompted by Max Scherzer, who was hitting .288 going into tonight's game--he's 1 for 2 tonight.) Not that hard if you think about it--I missed on my first guess, got it on the second. I found a page that list all seven HOF pitchers who did both in the same season (including the answer to the question). The page says seven non-HOF pitchers did it too. So a second question: who was the last guy (maybe--the last HOF'er, anyway) to win 20 and hit .300 in the same season?

my go-to for 'pitchers who could hit' is always former pirate great rick rhoden, who never won 20 games or had a significant cy young showing (fifth once)

so what i'm saying is that i have no idea

first guess that come to mind was dontrelle willis

Rhoden was 14-9 in '84, hit .333; Willis won 22 in 2005 and hit .261. So good guesses both, but no. I'll leave the question open till tomorrow.

Glavine?

Just checked -- it's not him, he never hit .300 in any season and was under .240 in his Cy Young years.

I'm going to go with Mike Hampton for my second guess (can't remember if he won the Cy during that one really good year he had, but he could hit).

Fernando "El Toro" Valenzuela?

Hampton finished second in the voting in 1999, won 22 games, and hit over .300. He might be the answer to #2 (not a HOFer though).

xp those are solid guesses, but i don't think it can be anyone (even) that recent

i'm sorry, 'el toro' is clearly former pirate great pedro alvarez's nickname

Glavine was my first guess too, NoTime. And Hampton is more recent than the answer I had for the second question (one of those seven non-HOF'ers)--good job.

The correct answer to the first question is Bob Gibson, who hit .303 in his Cy-winning '70 season. The HOF answer to the second question was a year later (and extra tough because an AL pitcher just prior to the DH): Catfish Hunter won 21 in 1971 and hit .350!

Some others: http://www.baseballbunts.com/index.php/the-club/299-pitchers-in-the-hall-of-fame-with-20-wins-and-300-batting-average-in-a-season

bob gibson is the answer to so much!

good quiz

Holy crap, I didn’t know that about Gibson! I knew he was a fine hitter, but dang.

The big surprise to me was Catfish Hunter--that .350 mark was in 103 AB. He was pretty good for his whole career (.226), even if you eliminate 1971 (still above .200). He only got two more PA after the DH came in; batted 1.000 in 1973 in one AB.

I wouldn't have guessed Gibson. I was sure it was somebody more recent.

https://enlightenment.rip/

this was discussed on the fangraphs podcast - it's a tool to discover the first MLB player who was younger than you and the last player older than you

for me it's rick ankiel and bartolo colon

Mine are Ed Nunez (journeyman AL reliever) and Julio Franco

I always thought the first younger was Jose Oquendo, but Nunez beat him by a year

ankiel/bart for me as well

i also got bartolo colon

something is broken with it, i think?

i'm 35 btw

i got jose reyes, on the younger side

if you're younger than bartolo colon, the answer for the second part defaults to bartolo colon, because i guess it defaults to the oldest "last player older than you were to play in the majors"? i don't know, the first part is more interesting anyways

yeah, i guess the second question becomes more interesting once you're older than all of the active players. i'm working on it!

I got Melvin Upton. My friend I sent it to is going to get Pujols, which is really gonna fuck him up because Pujols Is Old has been a bit of a running joke w/ us

hell there are half a dozen managers younger than me now

Both sides of that are broken. It gave me Aramis Ramirez for first player younger than me. He was born about six months after I was. Several players were born between the two dates.

Fred Manrique on the young end--never heard of him. (Debuted in '81 for the Jays, also played for the Expos.) Julio Franco at the other end.

I got Alex Rodriguez (born ten months after me) and Colon (still older than me, so the dream of playing in MLB is alive).

Benji Gil / Raul Ibañez

I had done this before through Baseball Reference. Got same answer...

Alex Fernandez & Mariano Rivera

Jose Bautista (Braves, Mets, Phillies) will become the third player to appear for three teams in a single division in the same season. The others:

-Kelly Johnson, 2014 (Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles)

-Bob Reynolds, 1975 (Tigers, Indians, Orioles)

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) August 28, 2018

Both sides of that are broken. It gave me Aramis Ramirez for first player younger than me. He was born about six months after I was. Several players were born between the two dates.

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Friday, August 24, 2018 4:27 PM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but the players between, did they play before aramis did? the point is, it tells you who was the first player to suit up for a game who was younger than you. aka the first time you could turn on a game and say "oh i'm not younger than all ballplayers now." it's not just "who's closest to you in age."

also says on the side that as long as there's a player older than you, it'll just show the oldest active player. when all players are younger than you, that's when the second part becomes interesting.

Hmm, looks like you're correct. None of the guys in the interim debuted before Aramis.

mookie betts could become the fourth player to win an MVP, batting title, gold glove and silver slugger all in the same year. who were the other three?

(note: the silver slugger awards began in 1980)

Two quick guesses: Ichiro, Altuve.

ichiro is correct

there's no chance it's cabrera, is it? or trout? seems too easy

Matt Kemp?

i don't think anyone ever accused miguel cabrera of being a gold glover

one of these players is active

the other is retired, but there is an ILB thread bearing his name

holy shit, willie mcgee, '85! is there anything he can't do

^^^

the other is joe mauer, 2009

i just checked the 2001 bWAR leaders re MVP; Jason Giambi wuz robbed

(also Bret Boone higher than Ichiro w/ Seattle)

tru

still can't quite believe it wasn't obvious that Gooden was the MVP of '85

i only guessed miggy because a) i wasn't watching when he was young and who knows, and b) they've given some fairly dubious gold gloves before no?

James went on a big tirade in the '86 Abstract about McGee, but that was in defense of Dale Murphy, not Gooden. Strange, because the following year, he wrote a long piece analyzing the MVP cases for Clemens and Mattingly (base on their '86 seasons). Can't remember what he concluded, but he clearly was open to a pitcher winning (as he was in '78, when he wrote a similar piece analyzing Rice vs. Guidry).

WAR has McGee considerably higher than Murphy in '85. I'd have to go back and check, but I think I encountered resistance here a few years ago when I first suggested Verlander as an obvious MVP candidate in 2011 (Bautista seemed to be the preferred choice).